The tourist visa to Japan has been re-accepted, (the latest news of the visa to Japan)

65438+ 10 9, the Japanese Embassy in China and Shanghai Consulate resumed accepting and issuing tourist visas to Japan. According to the first financial reporter, it is still impossible to apply for a 15-day short-term tourist visa, and the three-year multiple-entry visa is still suspended. Now you can only apply for a five-year multiple-entry visa. Study visa, work visa, etc. It didn't work.

Xiao Xiong, an intermediary who has been engaged in overseas travel business for many years, told CBN: "The visa materials for traveling to Japan are no different from those before the epidemic, but now it is very troublesome to enter the country."

Compared with many countries in Southeast Asia that welcome Japanese tourists indiscriminately, the Japanese government has strengthened the management of COVID-19 port for Japanese immigrants since June+10/October 8, 5438, such as conducting more accurate nucleic acid detection or antigen quantitative detection after landing at the airport, providing negative nucleic acid certificates within 72 hours, and calling on airlines not to increase flights between China and China. This new regulation is only one week after the Japanese government adjusted its entry policy on February 30, 65438 last year.

In fact, when China officially announced on February 26th, 2022 that the outbound travel of China citizens would be resumed in an orderly manner from June 54381October 8th, the stocks of Japanese department stores, drugstores, specialty stores and other retail industries all reached the highest prices since the beginning of 2022. However, Japan's new entry regulations put Japanese tourists who have been waiting for China tourists for three years in a dilemma.

Sang Mingmei Bao, one of Japan's two major travel agency trade associations and a representative of the Propaganda Department of Japan Travel Agency Association who owns 1 100 travel agency members, told CBN that trade associations can only abide by the new regulations of the Japanese government, and it is impossible to predict how long the new regulations will be implemented. "But we are still waiting for the day when Chinese tourists return, especially after the group tour in China returns to normal, which will be a shot in the arm."

How important are China tourists?

Tourism has become one of the pillars of Japanese economy. Take the tourism data of 20 19 before the epidemic, which is most valued by Japan Tourism Bureau, as an example. This year, the contribution of tourism to Japan's GDP was about 7.3%.

How important are China tourists to Japanese tourism?

According to the data of Japan Tourism Bureau in 20 19, the number of foreign tourists visiting Japan in that year was 3 1882 10000, of which 16775600 came from China, accounting for 52.6% of all foreigners visiting Japan. Among them, the number of Japanese tourists visiting Japan in that year alone reached 9.594 million, an increase of 14.5% over the previous year, accounting for more than 30% of all foreign tourists visiting Japan.

The above data also shows that the overall consumption of foreigners visiting Japan in 20 19 reached a record 4.8 1 trillion yen, an increase of 6.5% over 20 18, and a record high for seven consecutive years. Among them, the consumption of Japanese tourists reached 1.77 trillion yen, ranking first, accounting for 36.8% of the total consumption of foreigners visiting Chinese mainland, 2.6 percentage points higher than 20 18.

Xiong recalled that 2009 and 20 1 1 were two special years for Japanese tourists to visit China. According to public information, at the end of 2009, the Japanese government officially opened individual single visit visas to Japanese tourists; At the end of 20 1 1, the Japanese government officially opened individual multiple-entry visas to Japanese tourists. "Since then, Japanese tourists have gone to China for a blowout development." She said.

Especially in 20 15, due to the depreciation of the Japanese yen and other factors, not only did the number of Japanese tourists to Japan increase by 107.3% compared with the previous year, but the word "rush to buy" also became popular in major Japanese media. 20 15 the explosive growth of Japanese tourists also ushered in the fastest growing year of Japanese tourists in history.

However, three years after the outbreak, the number of foreign tourists coming to China, including Japanese tourists, dropped sharply, and Japanese tourism was immediately "frozen". Affected by the epidemic in 2020, the number of foreign tourists visiting Japan dropped to 4110.6 million, and in 2026, the number was only 246,000 in 5438+0, which was less than the fraction in 20 19.

Fuji Jianzhuang, an old hotel located in Pu Jun, Aichi Prefecture, Japan, is the first small and medium-sized enterprise that was declared bankrupt due to the epidemic recorded by Imperial Japan Database Company.

Established in 1956, this time-honored hotel has been taking Japanese tourists as its main source since 20 13, benefiting from the surge of Japanese tourists to China, and its rooms have been full. However, on June 5438+ 10, 2020, affected by the epidemic, several China delegations cancelled their travel plans, which became the last straw to crush this old store. Since then, the database of the Great Japanese Empire has continuously entered small and medium-sized enterprises that went bankrupt due to the epidemic. Among them, from the perspective of industry, catering, hotel/accommodation and tourism-related industries are in the forefront; In terms of location, popular tourist destinations Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto have the largest number of bankrupt enterprises.

The shortage of manpower is a big problem at present.

Japan's economy is under great pressure, and the slowdown in export growth may push the Japanese economy into recession in 2023. At the same time, the continuous depreciation of the yen and high inflation have also had a direct negative impact on the Japanese economy.

At one time, people very much hoped that tourism could promote economic development. Without the epidemic, Japan has gradually realized the plan of "building a country through sightseeing", that is, by 2020, the number of foreign tourists visiting Japan will reach 40 million, and the overall consumption will reach 8 trillion yen.

Now, after seven rounds of epidemic shocks, starting from June 2022, Japan announced the opening of the country with the rhythm of "small steps and quick running": at first, it was required to join the group; From 65438+1October 1 1, the restrictions on joining the tour group have been cancelled, and those with valid vaccination certificates no longer need to do nucleic acid testing before going to Japan, and Japan's tourism industry has been fully liberalized.

In the following two months, more and more foreign tourists appeared in Japan, and the tourism industry also embarked on the track of slow recovery. According to the latest data released by jnto, 934,500 foreigners visited Japan in June165438+1October last year, accounting for about 40% of the same period in 20 19. Among them, the number of tourists visiting Japan from South Korea has recovered to 60% before, and the number of tourists from Southeast Asia, Europe and America is also increasing.

Sang Ming Bao Mei also has a deep understanding of this. "Although the number of foreign tourists entering the country has increased, it is still far from the data of 20 19. The number of foreign tourists received by many travel agencies is only half of 20 19. "

However, taking advantage of the current depreciation of the yen, the consumption of tourists visiting Japan began to increase. According to the statistics of Japan Department Store Association, although the duty-free sales of13.6 billion yen in June last year decreased by 47% compared with June 20 19, the duty-free sales of five large department stores such as Takashimaya are recovering to June 20 19. From the end of June last year to the beginning of February last year, the duty-free sales of many branches of Mitsukoshi Isetan in the capital circle increased by 4% over the same period of 20 1 19.

However, in this wave of tourism recovery in Japan, there are few tourists from China, the largest overseas market of Japanese tourism. "What we want most is Japanese tourists," a Japanese tourist who has been a group tour in China for many years told CBN. "There have been no Japanese tourists in these three years, and I almost forgot how to receive Japanese tourists." He went on to say that, according to observation, the popularity of drugstores and home appliance stores, which are highly dependent on China tourists, has not obviously recovered.

Sang Mingmei Bao told CBN that although Japan's tourism industry is slowly recovering, it faces many challenges, the first of which is the shortage of manpower. "During the epidemic, many tourism-related enterprises closed down and laid off employees, so in the face of strong inbound tourists, it is imperative to solve the problem of labor shortage."

According to Japanese media reports earlier, about 20% of more than 460 tenants at Narita Airport were permanently closed before the outbreak. The head of NAARetailing Group, which runs shops such as duty-free shops at Narita Airport, is also looking forward to the return of Chinese mainland tourists. He said that if the number of tourists from Chinese mainland increased significantly in the future, he would hire employees who could speak Chinese.

Keiji Kanda, a senior economist at Daiwa Research Institute, a financial company, pointed out, "Before this spring, the consumption of tourists visiting Japan is expected to continue to increase, but for enterprises, it is imperative to improve labor productivity."

In addition, Sang Ming Bao Mei also stressed that after the outbreak, foreign tourists tend to seek higher value-added tourism, not just "sightseeing", such as experiencing and trying things they didn't know before. "Therefore, this is also the new direction we are preparing."

Japanese Prime Minister kishida fumio hopes to inject vitality into the weak Japanese economy by revitalizing the tourism industry in the post-epidemic era. To this end, the Kishida government has set a goal of attracting 5 trillion yen of tourism consumption every year, and increasing the number of visitors to Japan to 60 million by 2030. Recently, however, some Japanese media have questioned this: Can this goal be achieved without China as the biggest driving force?